Improvement In Fuel Efficiency of BS

IV Bus by Optimizing the Final Drive

Ratio (DR).
By: Ravi Teja N
 Introduction:
▪ The importance of fuel economy to the successful operation of a Public Transport
Organisation cannot be understated. Fuel is one of the largest variable costs in a
public transport venture, and, while no operation can control the cost of fuel, it
has at least some control over the amount or rate of consumption.
▪ The rpm level where the engine cruises can provide critical fine-tuning of fuel
economy. To do this, we can spec the gearing so that the engine runs at the most
efficient rpm range (sweetspot).
▪ We have optimised the final drive ratio so that engine runs at most efficient rpm
range when cruising on highways giving fine- tuning fuel economy.
▪ Eventually, this results in compromising in performance of the vehicle at low
speeds which we can take care of given the improvement in fuel economy we get.

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Development Stages:
▪ Simulation & Optimisation of Powertrain of a BS IV Bus to obtain the optimized
final drive ratios.
▪ We optimized the final drive ratio to improve the fuel economy considering the
drivability performance of the Bus by using Simulation software and got the
optimized final drive ratio as 4.88 DR.
▪ We changed the final drive ratio from 5.29 DR to 4.88 DR by installing the
Differential physically and tested on our proto Bus on city & highway conditions
dynamically for the practical fuel efficiency & performance test results.

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 Simulation Results:
We have done the fuel efficiency simulations in Indian Highway Drive cycle (worst
Condition) at 80 KMPH with A/C load Considered.
With the existed Drive ratio of 5.29 DR the fuel economy is 3.72 kmpl

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 With the optimised Drive ratio of 4.88 DR we got the fuel economy of 3.99 kmpl. So
the overall percentage in improvement of fuel economy is 7.26 %

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 With the change in overall final drive ratio, the engine operating points will change.
We optimized the final drive ratio such a way that the engine will operate at its high
efficient zone.
Below is the Engine operation RPM graph with the earlier DR of 5.29

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 Below is the Engine operation point RPM graph with the optimized DR of 4.88.

You can see the engine operating points shifted towards the engine efficient zone

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 Dynamic (On- Road) Results with A/C ON:
Fuel Efficiency Test:

By considering the improvement in simulation results, we have done the on- road test with
improved 4.88 DR to study the dynamic fuel economy and drivability performace of the Bus

In dynamic test, the percentage improvement in fuel economy at 60 kmph is 9.8% and at 80 kmph is 9.7%

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 Performance Test:

The above graph shows you the time taken for the acceleration from stand still to respective speeds.

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 Conclusion:
▪ We have improved the fuel efficiency of the BS IV Bus by optimizing the Final
Drive ratio so that engine runs at its most efficient zone most of the time results in
improved fuel efficiency and the reduced powertrain noise with the cost of
minimum reduction in performance of the vehicle.

Thank You

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